Awful Android app - Still not the general app thread.

«‹›9 »

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Inspect Your Gadgets > Awful Android app - Still not the general app thread.

LastInLine: Mar 15, 2006; Nothing quite like a man in a Cape

Maybe I'm in the minority but it seems like tying the action Back to the Back Button would be most intuitive. I'm sure if it isn't, I'd be exiting the app every time I finished a thread.

I like the way the xda app handles forum navigation, have you looked at the way it does it? Basically it works like any tapatalk client does, but the gist of it is that:

-Replies are done by a menu option within a thread
-Quotes are done by long-pressing a post (I don't believe there's multiquote functionality)
-Next page is at the bottom of a thread, kind of as though it's the last post
-Back to thread list is done with the menu option ("Exit thread"), but you can also use the Back button to work back to it.

# ¿ Feb 20, 2011 19:58

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ¿ May 24, 2013 01:16

LastInLine: Mar 15, 2006; Nothing quite like a man in a Cape

Ferg posted:

The backbutton won't exit you out of the app if you've opened other activities while using it. Currently the way navigation is working is it fires off another request for a thread's posts, and then repopulates the list. What it could do is re-launch the same activity which would mean that hitting the back button would pop the current activity (say the one showing page 2) and it would bring the previous activity (the one showing page 1) back up.

So basically Back once refreshes then Back again takes you back to the last thing you did (either to the thread listing or the previous page in a thread)?

Sounds pretty good, though I don't know that the refresh would be necessary although it does free up a menu spot.

# ¿ Feb 20, 2011 20:18

LastInLine: Mar 15, 2006; Nothing quite like a man in a Cape

clamiam45 posted:

If you're adding them as features as well, you may want to also hide the other post-specific links (Profile, Message, Post History, Rap Sheet, Report) under a long press along with Quote.

That stuff would be great but one link that would be fantastic to have in there would be "Mark thread read to this post". I figure the app would be often used to fill small amounts of time and this would greatly aid moving between the desktop and the app.

# ¿ Feb 20, 2011 23:34

LastInLine: Mar 15, 2006; Nothing quite like a man in a Cape

PlaneGuy posted:

On touchscreens, I don't use the quick nav... my fat sausage fingers can't handle it.

Not that this is the thread for this, but you know if you touch the quick nav box, that it pops up a large window for you to scroll and select the option you want, right?

# ¿ Feb 21, 2011 18:43

LastInLine: Mar 15, 2006; Nothing quite like a man in a Cape

1997 posted:

I'm no graphic designer, but I made an icon with everyone's favorite emoticon:

Anxiously awaiting a usable build of this.

This is so great.

# ¿ Feb 21, 2011 20:22

LastInLine: Mar 15, 2006; Nothing quite like a man in a Cape

Vertigus posted:

"SA Forums" might be a better name for the app, since the text under the icon wouldn't get cut off.

No, the best name for the app is "Awful" or "Awful App", something in the A's.

# ¿ Feb 23, 2011 09:22

LastInLine: Mar 15, 2006; Nothing quite like a man in a Cape

So much quoting to do:

1997 posted:

The center one is closest to standard icon implementation, plus I just love it. Please let's avoid having a background.

Karanth posted:

Agreed on failure feedback, but putting up a "post in progress" notification is pretty nonstandard. Even the stock gmail app just puts up a "sending" toast and that feels like a little much.

Then again, if the notification text is analogous to the, "we pray to god it didn't suck" interstitial post page it would at least fit the site.

I really dislike the idea of a posting notification but I think Karanth here has the best idea (kind of): refresh the thread with your new post at the bottom if successful and a toast if it fails. That way you'd still be at the screen where you composed your reply and wouldn't have to retype it.

brosmike posted:

I love me some quickactions

I like quickactions too, but clicking on the avatar should bring links to Profile, Message (assuming we build in PM capability), and maybe Rap Sheet or other non-critical, poster-centered functionality.

Long-pressing on the post is a much better place for Quote. Mainly because on a small screen posts are going to look long, usually longer than the screen. It's going to suck to have to scroll back to the top of the post to quote it. Long-press on the post should bring up Quote, Mark Read to Here, and if Ferg is feeling froggy, maybe Share Post that could do the usual thing were it puts the thread at that post (the # button) on the clipboard and opens the usual app (GMail, Talk, etc). I know I do a lot of sharing of threads with people and it's very common to link to a great post in a thread and this would be convenient and easy.

BluDiE posted:

One functionality that I realized I'm assuming but might not be obvious: When at the thread list, the default action when clicking on a post should be "Go to last unread post". The action bar can, or should, have an option to go back to the OP (although I really don't know how useful that'd be here as opposed to say xda where files are generally in the OP). I like that there's an indicator for how many unread posts there are but you shouldn't have to click it to go to the last unread, clicking anywhere should do it. Does anybody ever not just go to the last unread?

# ¿ Feb 24, 2011 00:43

LastInLine: Mar 15, 2006; Nothing quite like a man in a Cape

big mean giraffe posted:

Alright well pretend this frog is a well-done frog with his mouth open:

Comments? Just a basic concept I threw together in paint.net so it's rough. Pretend it's slick and well-done in photoshop or something.

Dumb question, but why is there a login screen at all? Why don't we have User/Pass in the settings and an option to either always log you in and store your U/P or only store your username and require a password?

If it's set to automatically login, make a "Loading" splash screen while it does so and if it's set to require a password make it throw a prompt over the splash.

# ¿ Feb 24, 2011 08:02

LastInLine: Mar 15, 2006; Nothing quite like a man in a Cape

brosmike posted:

To clarify a bit on how login works: Although right now the app DOES store your username and password unmodified in an android-managed SharedPreferences (), this is terrible and it won't be released like this. At release, your username/password will be sent to the server and immediately discarded - all that the app actually needs to store, even to auto-login, is a cookie from the server, NOT your password itself. Ferg, have you started working on this yet? I can do that next if you haven't.

There's not really any reason we need a login screen, but I can't really think of a compelling reason to not have one either - it's more consistent with how most other apps work.

Though I agree there should be a way to bypass it, browse without logging in, and NOT have threads break horribly like they do now.

Thanks for the clarification, I'm very interested in the nuts and bolts but know nothing about development.

# ¿ Feb 24, 2011 09:06

LastInLine: Mar 15, 2006; Nothing quite like a man in a Cape

Alright then gently caress if there has to be a login screen, make it the frog with his mouth open on the SA blue field. Make a white, rounded speech bubble coming out that says "Awful App".

Below put the Username field and the Password field and a login button.

When you enter the data and submit, if it's successful the frog changes to

, if you enter the wrong data and it fails, change the text to

# ¿ Feb 24, 2011 14:11

LastInLine: Mar 15, 2006; Nothing quite like a man in a Cape

I Dont Like You posted:

I'm really into that first one without the title as well.. drat.

The one without the title owns owns owns.

# ¿ Feb 24, 2011 22:33

LastInLine: Mar 15, 2006; Nothing quite like a man in a Cape

Sunblood posted:

The only feature I really *need* at the moment is Mark as Last Read on long-press. Everything else is just beautiful frosting on the most amazing cake. Fantastic work Ferg. Surprisingly full-featured for a 1.1 release.

I'm glad you said no donations because I would probably throw some at you despite not having the money to spare.

I agree, Mark as Read to Here is the only thing that really limits functionality at this point.

# ¿ Mar 5, 2011 17:43

LastInLine: Mar 15, 2006; Nothing quite like a man in a Cape

Ferg posted:

Day Man posted:
Any chance of getting a page number displayed along with the total number of pages in the thread? Loving the app so far!
This is one of the pain points I'm trying to address for the next release. Ideas are welcome, since I'm a little stumped yet on how I want to display it.

And if anybody says press the menu to show the page numbers I will ignore you.

Whomever it was that said a header and footer is correct, and the Next Page button should be moved to the footer.

After the last post (perhaps even in a different color), it should say "1/4, Click for next" or "4/4, End of thread". Anything to move that Next Page button.

One change I'd like to propose: In the forums listing, the click area to expand the subforums should be small on the left (the area around the arrow indicating there is a dropdown) and the area to select that forum should be the rest of the bar (and there's no need for the blue arrow). This is how other Android apps that use the expanding tree model operate, i.e. the music player. It would also be nice to have a visual cue that you touched the correct forum/subforum. Right now you get a flash of color when you select the box to expand it, but when you select it, nothing visually happens to show what you picked. This is the opposite of how it should be.

# ¿ Mar 10, 2011 09:55

LastInLine: Mar 15, 2006; Nothing quite like a man in a Cape

JazzFlight posted:

This is like in school when a teacher would tell you that you had to "show your work" on a math test.

Which I always hated and was total bullshit.

(Although I love reading changelogs--like more than a person should.

)

# ¿ Mar 13, 2011 20:24

LastInLine: Mar 15, 2006; Nothing quite like a man in a Cape

Karanth posted:

Seconding this. The page indicator should be a footer view with next/prev buttons. The floating display is too much.

Again I'd like to express my vote for this. I always scroll to read only the top portion of the screen and the current page indicator is right where I want to read.

Also, avatars still get moved around. I'll try clearing cache and seeing if that helps. Edit: No cache to clear so I cleared data; avatars still completely wrong most of the time.

LastInLine fucked around with this message at Mar 20, 2011 around 05:53

# ¿ Mar 20, 2011 05:48

LastInLine: Mar 15, 2006; Nothing quite like a man in a Cape

Skeezy posted:

How do I go about changing defaults on this thing?

Depends on where you set it, but I'm guessing in the browser. Go into Settings > Applications > Browser and Clear Defaults. If it's set in a different app, you do the same thing in that app's settings.

# ¿ Mar 21, 2011 06:57

LastInLine: Mar 15, 2006; Nothing quite like a man in a Cape

Ferg posted:

I hate it too. I'm going to swap the background image for the actionbar in the next release which will conserve a bit more screen real-estate and fix that ugly rear end fade.

Will it make the thread title text small enough to be read? Right now it's pretty tough to tell what thread I'm in sometimes since I only get like sixteen characters to figure it out.

# ¿ Mar 23, 2011 07:11

LastInLine: Mar 15, 2006; Nothing quite like a man in a Cape

big mean giraffe posted:

I discussed this with Ferg a while ago and I don't remember why but he didn't like it and I ended up agreeing.

I'd honestly like to know why. It's how the xda forums app works and to tell you the truth I find it much nicer than the current implementation.

I never need to go to the next page in the thread until I have read the page I am on, therefore I don't need a next page button until the end of the page
If for some reason I do need to move to the next page before the end of a page, I can use the Select Page option in Menu (and this is an edge case)
The issue that nearly everyone on this page is discussing, the issue of the thread title bar not having enough of the title on it, would be lessened
Holding the phone in portrait you can't easily reach the next page button with your thumb, whereas if it were at the bottom in the footer you could
The footer is large enough to allow for more controls than the current action bar with regards to pages. For instance, there's easily enough room for First Page on the left, the page number in the middle (click on it to bring up the Select Page dialog), and Next Page on the right. You could probably even put Last Page on there if you wanted. The current action bar doesn't have room for any of these.

I struggle to think of any positives at all with the current placement of the next page button, although I'll concede that everyone uses their phone differently and I might not be thinking of how everyone would like it. I'm genuinely curious as to the reasoning behind its current placement as I've found it baffling from the beginning.

# ¿ Mar 31, 2011 07:47

LastInLine: Mar 15, 2006; Nothing quite like a man in a Cape

Iananan posted:

the g1, some magics. it depends on the carrier as well as the manufacturer most of the time whether you'll get the updates.

If you have a Dream/Magic/Sapphire, why wouldn't you be on at least CM5?

# ¿ Apr 3, 2011 15:28

LastInLine: Mar 15, 2006; Nothing quite like a man in a Cape

deep square leg posted:

This is an awesome app and I'll continue to use it regardless, but I do have one request: Would it be possible to make the whole "Page X of X" bar at the bottom also a button that goes to the next page? When using my left hand (while holding a bag or tram pole) it's difficult to reach the next page button at the top-right; I often press the new post button instead.

Since the bar doesn't have any other functionality, and since it's only available at the bottom of the page, I presume it wouldn't create problems for others. But correct me if I'm wrong!

I've been asking for this for a while now. It, along with with the inverted dropdown/selection touch area on the forums listing are my two biggest UI peeves.

Lowen SoDium posted:

I kind of agree, except I would rather see it have a button on it, rather than the whole thing be a button.

I'll even take this (although if we're going to throw buttons on there, lets do the whole <<< < 1/2 > >>> thing so we can get all of that out of menu. Make the page indicator bring up the page number selector too).

# ¿ Apr 13, 2011 07:35

LastInLine: Mar 15, 2006; Nothing quite like a man in a Cape

hatersg2haet posted:

Sad how this is better than the xda app.

Anyone have problems posting sometimes?

Also- a widget would be nice.

Also can't get user cp to work.

Better how? I find the xda app easier to navigate as it's much easier to access saved locations (both threads and forums). It's immediately apparent which threads have been seen, which have new posts, and how many there are (and all of those consistently update).

Reading threads is also much easier on the xda app with better UI, better handling of pictures, and better access to thread tools. You can do things like see the title of the thread you're in, the total number of posts in the thread, the page you're on and how many there are and all while consuming less real estate than the Awful app does.

Granted the xda app is mature, has backend support, and doesn't have to deal with some hosed-with non-standard implementation of forum software so it's understandable it'd be better. I'm genuinely curious in what ways you feel it's inferior.

The only advantage the Awful app has over the xda one is that it can browse these forums instead of those.

I'm not trying to disparage Ferg and the others' work, so far I really like it and it seems to only be getting better all the time. I am just saying that there's still a ways to go before I'd call it "better than the xda app".

# ¿ Apr 18, 2011 12:12

LastInLine: Mar 15, 2006; Nothing quite like a man in a Cape

brosmike posted:

Ferg has final say of course, but I really hate the idea of hard-coding certain forums in. What would people think about being able to bookmark forums in addition to just threads? Obviously the forum bookmarks would only exist within the Awful app, but it would mean people could C2P a link to the forum in question once, bookmark it, and then be able to access it even if it doesn't show up in the main listing the app parses.

This is something the xda app does that I really like. It retains your bookmarked threads using the forum software and the app itself retains your favorite forums and subforums. I find the feature super convenient.

# ¿ Apr 23, 2011 21:22

LastInLine: Mar 15, 2006; Nothing quite like a man in a Cape

Maker Of Shoes posted:

I'm guessing that's a newer VBulletin feature.

I don't think it is. I've wiped data a couple times installing CM7 nightlies and each time the subscribed threads are in my favorites when I reinstall the app but the forums I've favorited don't populate unless I restore the app data in TB.

# ¿ Apr 23, 2011 23:45

LastInLine: Mar 15, 2006; Nothing quite like a man in a Cape

Meander posted:

The other thing is I haven't upgraded it to the 2.1 release of Android yet since I've had no reason to yet - would that make the Awful App downloadable for me?

While 2.1 isn't 2.2 by any stretch, you should upgrade to it anyway. The vast improvement over 1.6 is worth it, trust me.

# ¿ Apr 28, 2011 12:01

LastInLine: Mar 15, 2006; Nothing quite like a man in a Cape

Kazy posted:

Just a suggestion: Can we get a dead zone or something on the auto-page load on forums? More often than not I find I'm stuck in a loading screen because I wanted to click a thread near the bottom of the page. Though I guess this is only a real issue on large-screen devices like my Nook Color that can display more threads at once.

And I still find myself missing the arrow to go into a main forum sometimes I still don't understand why subforums really get priority over that, as there are probably more people wanting to go to main forums than subforums.

I agree with both of these points wholeheartedly. I've run into the loading screen often lately.

The dropdown for subforums needs to be all the way on the left, with the majority bar leading to the main forum.

# ¿ May 10, 2011 11:01

LastInLine: Mar 15, 2006; Nothing quite like a man in a Cape

Glimm posted:

I'd kind of like to have arrows on the bottom footer for this similar to what the forums already does, << < > >> - although this will probably look too crowded.

I want this in the end of page gray box (the one that shows the Page x/x now) more than anything else in the world. Santa could keep his loving pony if I just got this for Christmas.

# ¿ May 11, 2011 08:54

LastInLine: Mar 15, 2006; Nothing quite like a man in a Cape

Hadlock posted:

Oh right, and having the display turn off where it's black gives you amazing contrast. I can't wait for cheap, super amoled 42" displays.

Off topic for this thread, but you will never see large AMOLED displays. The main reason is because of the O in that: organic. It has a very limited lifespan. Now on a phone you'll be replacing in 2-5 years that's not a big deal. On a TV you'd reasonable expect to last 200,000 hours, that's a dealbreaker.

Add to it the fact that it's susceptible to burn-in (now that we're used to cheap, high-quality LCDs) means that it's just not a good technology for larger displays.

# ¿ May 26, 2011 08:08

LastInLine: Mar 15, 2006; Nothing quite like a man in a Cape

brosmike posted:

I always thought it was a neat idea, but a bit out of place - I couldn't think of a way to integrate it with the thread view that I liked (nothing I could think of solved the "requires ludicrous amounts of scrolling anytime you'd use it" issue), and I didn't like that the forum and thread views acted differently.

Smaller font and line wrap would be infinitely preferable to the current scrolling implementation, especially on the thread listings.

# ¿ Jun 4, 2011 13:29

LastInLine: Mar 15, 2006; Nothing quite like a man in a Cape

brosmike posted:

Although I agree with this, it has nothing to do with what you quoted.We were talking about how the current market build's forum view does an endless scrolling technique like the market instead of pages like the thread view.

Are you planning a feature to improve the reading comprehension of forums posters such as myself? I'd greatly appreciate it.

# ¿ Jun 4, 2011 14:18

LastInLine: Mar 15, 2006; Nothing quite like a man in a Cape

Geekner posted:

That was me, actually. I wasn't sure if I should re-implement the idea or just polish the page-based navigation. I'll just do page-based for now since that is easier. The current unstable version is missing the "Page 1/X" bar at the bottom, I'll add it and put back/forth buttons on it.

Hey if you're making a bar with "Page 1/x" and back and forth buttons on it, would you please please please put back and forth buttons on the end of page bar that's in the thread? My #1 pet peeve is reaching all the way to the top of the screen to hit the next page button. (As a bonus, getting rid of that next page button at the top would give much more room to display the thread title.)

# ¿ Jun 6, 2011 16:17

LastInLine: Mar 15, 2006; Nothing quite like a man in a Cape

crazysim posted:

This is quite a hellquote but I gutted the original always focus marquee hack that I did in response to Ferg's post and made it possible to scroll the TextView horizontally by touch. I guess this will probably spark off another few posts discussing the merits and demerits of this but I like the manual method more because it is not as distracting and you can go back and forth on your own accord so this works for me.

https://github.com/crazysim/Somethi.../manual_marquee

I love this idea.

# ¿ Jun 11, 2011 10:29

LastInLine: Mar 15, 2006; Nothing quite like a man in a Cape

In the thread view, the Menu was never changed to 2x3.

Aside from that this is great.

# ¿ Jun 14, 2011 19:50

LastInLine: Mar 15, 2006; Nothing quite like a man in a Cape

Dumb thing that doesn't matter (that only Ferg can fix): In the Market on the phone, the picture is the app icon in a huge white field rather than something that looks nice.

# ¿ Jun 17, 2011 08:32

LastInLine: Mar 15, 2006; Nothing quite like a man in a Cape

Archduke posted:

Pretty self-explanatory, if crude. Underneath the page number, there'd be a page 1, previous, next, last page navigation bar. I also think that tapping on the page # should open up the ``jump to'' box. It wouldn't be too hard to implement, I'd imagine, and it'd make it a bit easier to use, in my opinion.

e: Image didn't upload, sorry:

This is something I've wanted since the advent of the app but now I'd be against it for two reasons.

One, this isn't xda and I seldom if ever need to refer to the OP; likewise I seldom want to jump to the last page (although I sometimes do).

Two, in portrait mode space for the Next Page button is already tight, making the user aim around a second button would complicate things.

The compromise I'd offer would be to leave the footer as it is (I love it so much) except make the middle "Page x/y" do as you describe and call up the page selector. Then drop both Previous Page and the Page Selector from the menu. In the times you want to go to the OP or last page you can use the page selector.

# ¿ Jun 19, 2011 11:51

LastInLine: Mar 15, 2006; Nothing quite like a man in a Cape

Shanakin posted:

I kind of agree here, but what if you just made the forward/back buttons and then had a longpress for start/end on the appropriate button? I'm not sure if the standard button UI element supports longpress though.

I don't know that it does but I know what would happen to me. I'd get to the last post on a page, put my thumb on the next page button as I read it, then release it when I'm done reading the post expecting to go to the next page but ending up at the last one. (I know I'd do this because I long-press posts all the time while I'm resting my thumb on the screen "getting ready" to scroll the page as I read the post.)

What about you hit the "Page x/y" part to bring up the page selector, but the page selector dialog has both << and >> buttons along with the number field? Still a two-press solution, not as crowded in the UI.

# ¿ Jun 19, 2011 17:10

LastInLine: Mar 15, 2006; Nothing quite like a man in a Cape

I tend to agree with the others: I'm happy regardless of what order things happen but thread features (highlighting, UI improvements, SALR features) would help more in the day-to-day than PMs in my use case.

# ¿ Jun 24, 2011 20:04

LastInLine: Mar 15, 2006; Nothing quite like a man in a Cape

Geekner posted:

Pretty sure it's running out of memory in those cases, but I haven't really looked into it. I remember seeing a few out-of-memory errors when browsing really image-heavy threads.

That makes sense, it happens to me quite a bit as well.

Is there any way to have the app build a cache that won't grow to an obscene size but not have low memory devices show almost no images?

# ¿ Jul 7, 2011 07:57

LastInLine: Mar 15, 2006; Nothing quite like a man in a Cape

Fuzz posted:

I'm on a Thunderbolt running BAMF 1.6 or so, and my issue is that a good 80% of the time when posting, if I try to click around within my text to, say to fix a word swype hosed up on, it will instead jump up about 5-7 lines. It's consistent and will do this for the rest of that post attempt, and I have to use the hold-zoom dealy to place my cursor. Right now as I write this it's okay, but the last 3 posts were having the issue. loving annoying. Love the app otherwise, it's the bee's knees. And yes I'm on the latest beta of swype.

This happens to me all the time. The solution I've come up with is "Don't type the wrong thing. Ever."

# ¿ Jul 24, 2011 15:09

LastInLine: Mar 15, 2006; Nothing quite like a man in a Cape

I like the concept but I'd have to see it in practice before I could say how intuitive and usable it is.

Is there a list of feature requests where we can upvote/downvote things? I think it'd be neat to see everything we've got, everything we'd like, and what the developers think is doable.

# ¿ Aug 24, 2011 07:06

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ¿ May 24, 2013 01:16

LastInLine: Mar 15, 2006; Nothing quite like a man in a Cape

We really need to get a list of feature requests along with developer comments on them.

I like long press thread/post for links, but it might be nice to make the option Send to... and allow it to open Talk, Messaging, Browser, etc. (along with just "clipboard") because if you're copying it you're doing it to paste it in another app, why not have a way to directly go to it?

vvv Bookmarked, and I added the issue. Thanks! vvv

LastInLine fucked around with this message at Sep 2, 2011 around 11:01

# ¿ Sep 2, 2011 06:33

«‹›9 »

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Inspect Your Gadgets > Awful Android app - Still not the general app thread.